


Wednesday's Child

by wildpeace



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Female Friendships, Gen, Natalia Romanova - Freeform, Natasha's childhood, Obviously this contains violence, Red Room, This is really a story about Natasha., and mistreatment of children, and some of my own ideas and comic ideas, clintasha will appear I swear but much later in the story., especially under difficult circumstances, the Red Room is a mix of canon from Agent Carter and also Age of Ultron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-06-07 03:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6783901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildpeace/pseuds/wildpeace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a nameless baby, to Natalia Romanova, to The Black Widow, to Agent Romanoff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is in some ways a companion piece to 'The Kid that Doesn't Miss', in that it explores Natasha's childhood and how she became the person we see in canon. The stories in themselves, however, hold no connection. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this. It has been a labour of love and time and a lot of effort. 
> 
> My thanks always to my ML for cheerleading and being simply the best best.
> 
> *

Wednesday’s Child

 

Nowhere is it recorded what day she was born on, or what the weather was like. Her birthday is assigned to her much later, because one apparently needs such a thing, but she thinks there must have been someone once who remembered the day.   
 

She doesn’t know whether it happened in a hospital, with doctors and nurses attending, a cheerful antiseptic bustle helping to herald her arrival, or whether she had been born on worn blankets in a rickety home, with only her mother’s hands to cradle her newborn head.  Had she cried out on her entrance into the world?  Or had she, as an infant, been the same odd sort of quiet she is famed for as an adult?

 

It might have been snowy - Russia often was - the day she was born to a woman with a blank slate where her face should be, and no name, save the detached label of _mother_.  Was the woman happy to birth the redheaded child, to bring the small girl into the world?  Perhaps she touched her face with a gentle finger and cooed over her button nose and dark lashes. Perhaps her father (for she must have had a father, even for a night or an hour, at least a moment of paternity) celebrated with a drink that night, clinking glasses with his friends to toast the baby's name.

 

No one ever thought to write down the baby girl’s true name for posterity.

 

She doesn't recall much of the time _before_ : a vaguely familiar scent of sour pickles that bring to mind faint voices - echoes of ghosts or ghosts of echoes in her mind. A warm hand smoothing her hair from her brow. Small fingers wound in the thick dark fur of an unfailingly patient dog.  Just scant fleeting moments of a life - the life of the unnamed girl who may have been born in the snow or sun, on a Sunday or a Friday or a Wednesday.   


_Wednesday’s child is full of woe.  
_  

*

  
Natalia Romanova is born in fire and flame.

 

Smoke licking timber, that’s all she remembers, and an acrid taste in her mouth as she fights to breathe through the thick air.  She’s lost in the darkness, half of sleep and half of night, and hears voices calling to her, but she can’t make out the words, or even who is speaking.  All she can see is the bright orange flame, licking and teasing and winding its way around, creeping towards her bare toes, the floor crackling and blackening beneath her. 

 

She plunges her feet into snow, the scream ripped from her smoke-raw throat, and spends days with welts and blisters making her unable to walk.  Doctors and nurses murmur words, keeping her in bed, plying her with books and dolls and toys, but never answering her questions. 

 

_Where is Mama?  Where is Papa?  Will they come to take me home soon?_

As she grows, that part of her life grows fainter, like something once read in a story, or a portrait half painted and obscure.  Pictures are pinned over it, layers upon layers of words and images and faces, until all that remains of the little girl on fire are tiny scars on the soles of her feet.  Only rarely, at night, does she wake gasping into the darkness, heaving in great lungfuls of air, enough to make her head spin. She doesn’t remember why.

 

*

 

The cots lie in perfect rows.  Metal bedsteads at perfect angles, with perfect spaces left between.  Too far to touch the person sleeping next to you, even with an arm fully extended.  Close enough that they will hear you crying in your sleep. 

 

She has counted them again, again, again as she lies in her own, body still, head back, arms held high above her.  Her nightdress is thin white cotton draped against her skin; it does nothing to keep out the winter chill.  She wonders, sometimes, if it was simply the cast off of men who once were stationed here; she knows their concrete dwelling used to house an army.  The barrack is big: bigger than needed for the twenty-eight girls pinioned to their beds.  There are rooms they use - classrooms, training rooms, practice rooms - but many more they do not.

 

In the darkness the breathing of the other girls is even, deep and heavy, each one making no more noise than is absolutely necessary.  Springs squeak when bodies shift so movements are kept to a minimum.  The only thing that breaks the monotony is the occasional whimper of the girl at the end of the row; Natalia knows if she raises her head she will be able to see the mottled, bruised and bloody flesh where the girl’s pale face used to be. 

 

Uliya tries to muffle a howl but it creeps out from between her cracked and broken lips.

 

Natalia doesn’t break the rules.

 

She breathes in the sterile air and shifts so the grey woollen blanket scratches against her naked legs.  It’s an impotent shield against the breeze that creeps in the large window, gusting between off-yellow walls and the tread-worn tiled floor, but she is thankful for it.  Uliya, at the end of the row, has been stripped of her blanket, and huddles into her own broken body for warmth.  Natalia has seen it before; it is likely she will be dead by morning.

 

Stars glint outside the large window, she can spot them through the built up frost that arcs across the pane like creeping vines and spindly webs.  Two years ago the winter had been so cold that the glass had cracked and shattered over the bed of one of the older girls; she’d been woken by a shard cutting into her face beneath her eye, and had been left with a pink puckered scar down one cheek. 

 

Before the accident, the girl had been tall, dark, lithe and beautiful.  Some murmured that the scar would mean she would never graduate the program, that she was damaged.  But Natalia watched – amazed – as the older girl used the injury to her advantage.  Proved herself smart enough to wear the scar as a mask, to make her appear more human, more average.  So skilled she had been that such a defining feature had only served to help her blend in more with the common crowd, rather than make her stand out. 

 

She had graduated the Red Room the summer before. 

 

Natalia wonders if she will ever be so skilled.

 

With a stretch of her body, the mattress shifts, but she is careful enough that it does not squeak.  She may not be the biggest girl, or the strongest, but she prides herself on her silence; her ability to make movements like shadow.  It is the best talent she has.

 

The sun rises slowly, weakly, but even its pale light is enough to herald the morning.  Girls rustle and rise a fraction, eyelashes peeled carefully apart and yawns smothered against fingers, and wait.  The footsteps do not take long.

 

The _uchitelnitsa_ , the teacher, unlocks the door to the dormitory with a series of heavy thunks.  “Up,” she tells them with no fanfare save a clap of her broad hands, startling the one or two girls who had not yet been woken by the sun.  “The early birds catch the worms.”  Her words are in English, and as she reaches the first in the row of beds, she slaps a still dozing girl across the cheek, hard.  The girl squeaks, sitting bolt upright, and holds her arm out still as the _uchitelnitsa_ reaches for her keys.  “What do we say girls?” the woman asks the room at large, and Natalia takes a breath before reciting along with the others.

 

_“The early birds catch the worms.”_

 

At each bed the _uchitelnitsa_ makes them recite the proverb, and with a small click, the girls are unchained.

 

As she waits for her turn, Natalia looks over at the final bed in the row.  Uliya has not stirred and her body is as still as marble.  As the _uchitelnitsa_ approaches Natalia’s bed, she follows her line of sight.  Reaching over to unlock the shackles, the teacher’s face brushes the side of her crimson hair, her lips a whisper away from her ear.  “Is something wrong, Natalia?”

 

Unbound, Natalia rubs her wrist to fade away the familiar pink mark. 

 

_Natalia doesn’t break rules._

 

“No,” she replies firmly.  “The early birds catch the worms.”

 

*

 

They train before they eat.  Hunger makes them strong, their _uchitelnitsa_ says.  Natalia pulls on her socks and her shoes and eyes the other girls.  Today is gymnastics practice; they will tumble, climb and balance until their limbs ache and burn against the frozen wind outside.  Natalia thinks if she concentrates hard enough, she can will the chill from her skin, controlling the snow and the sky as though with magic.  She thinks perhaps she read a story once, of a girl who could command the ice, but when she tries to think back there is nothing to recall.

 

“ _Myshka_ ,” a voice whispers, urgently, and the name is enough to make Natalia turn.  A tall girl with freckles and block cut dark bangs widens her eyes and nods meaningfully towards the door.  When Natalia looks around, she realises she is almost the last left in the bedroom, and hurries to the door.

 

Dina sleeps in the bed next to hers.  She is strong and her eyes are big and blue and round.  In lessons, she speaks English with barely a trace of accent.

 

Now, waiting at the door, she takes Natalia’s hand and squeezes it so quickly that it barely registers, arms dropping back to their sides in a heartbeat.  “ _Myshka,”_ she whispers – _Little Mouse,_ a name shared like a secret, like the smiles they only shoot each other under cover of darkness – “quickly.”

 

The _uchitelnitsa_ doesn’t look fondly on friendship.  They are there to focus, push themselves, work to be the best.  To serve Mother Russia.  It is an honour to graduate the program and so few do.  Natalia hears this – how lucky she is, how chosen – at the start of every class.  Standing in the blowing wind, biting at her bare knees and thighs, she is reminded that all of them could be beggars on the street, orphans, sleeping in doorways and eating the flesh of rats.  That they should count their blessings and give their thanks that they were taken in, given beds, clothes, warm food.  A home, and are only asked one thing in return: allegiance.  Loyalty.  Girls following the rules.

 

In the lesson Natalia is told to work on tumbling.  On the snow-packed ground, she throws her body again and again, rolling and tucking her knees, shooting back up onto her feet.  She practices more and quicker, until her body barely touches the ground, but whispers across the ice, and she returns to her feet before having to think of moving them.  The _uchitelnitsa_ look on with a stern, unmoved expression.  Natalia knits her brows together and again throws her body into the move, pushing her legs to propel her body higher, faster.

 

This time, her feet are not ready.  Instead of landing in a crouch and then to stand, her body goes careening across the yard, icy grit scraping at her shoulder and back as she slams against the ground.  Stars momentarily burst across her vision, and her mouth floods with the taste of metal. 

 

Licking her lips, she realises the _uchitelnitsa_ is watching her, face still devoid of expression.

 

Pulling herself up to her feet, she limps back to her starting point.  Blood is dripping from her mouth and she’s fairly certain her shoulder is dislocated. 

 

Focusing, she wills her legs to pump hard and runs at full speed across the yard.  Pushing against the ground, she tucks her head into her chest, flipping over in the open air, and lands, square and solid.  Standing, she wobbles only a fraction, and spits her own hot copper blood on the ground at her feet.

 

The _uchitelnitsa_ nods her head, simply. 

 

“Again.”

 

*

 

They eat enough to keep them, but never enough to dull the storm of hunger in their bellies.  It makes them alert, sharp.  Dina tells her, early on, a lesson she had learned in her own first week: _“If a girl is not hungry, she is dead.”_ Ever since it has made leaving the dining room with an appetite still wanting slightly easier. 

 

Some girls steal food.  They tuck bread up their shirts and hide it under mattresses and pillows to be taken out only in the blackest of night, and pressed against mouths, desperately wanting.  Sometimes in her sleep Natalia can breathe the scent of yeast and taste the gentle salt against her lips.

 

When food is found – and it is _always_ found – girls sit at an empty plate at meals for three days, sometimes longer.  Natalia watches them as she bites slowly, chews methodically, and swallows carefully.  Some cry, tears dripping down their noses and splashing onto the long table before them.  Some are stony-faced, brittle and tough.  Either way, they always break in the end, apologising, pleading, begging for just a morsel to keep them going.

 

After they process back from meal, Natalia slips out of the dorm.  Winding down the corridor, she tiptoes upstairs, and comes to a single black door that she carefully unlocks with an unwound piece of metal that had once been a spring in her bed.  The door gives way, and she pushes it slowly, knowing exactly how far to open it before it will creak.  The room is an old file room; piles of papers lie stacked and dusty next to half broken desks.  An old cabinet has fallen sideways, the drawers pulled out and tossed aside as though someone has eviscerated it, gutting the furniture. 

 

Sliding into the shadowed room, she goes straight to the far end and pulls herself up onto a table, then uses the tilting bookcase as a ladder to climb to the rafters.  Hand over hand, feet careful not to slip and steps feather-light, she hauls herself up.  Her small body fits into a tiny crawl space at the end, and it’s here, shoved far into the corner, that she finds the little cardboard box.  Inside, wrapped, hidden, and covered in paper, four bread rolls sit, perfect and round.  Reaching into her skirt, she pulls a fifth out of her underwear, and places it in the box with the rest.  She breathes in, deeply, inhaling the scent.  Her eyes close, her pink tongue darts out and licks her lips, but she closes the lid once again, shoving it back into the corner.

 

Whatever happens, Natalia Romanova will never beg for food. 

 

*

 

She studies English and French and Spanish and Italian and recites American states and capitals and handwrites the English alphabet until her letters loop just right.  She watches films about Russia, about the Kremlin and the Red Square, and about the ballet – the _Bolshoi –_ and the _uchitelnitsa_ reminds them all of the beauty of their nation, the talent, the culture.  How it is their duty to uphold their national pride, to take it out and spread it across the savage and soulless world. 

 

In their own ballet class they move from _first, second, fifth, third,_ their legs flexing and feet arching and a cane moving swiftly to strike the legs, buttocks or back of any girl caught slouching or overbalancing.  Natalia practices on pointe ‘til her toes are bloody and then leaps – _jeté, jeté, jeté –_ across the room.  Her breath is torn from her body in rasps.  Even after the other girls leave, she pounds her feet against the polished wooden floor. 

 

The _uchitelnitsa_ says they hope she will grow into her looks.  Still young, her chin is pointed and her mouth too big for her face, and her red hair makes her stand out from the mass.  They are pretty, the other girls, Natalia thinks.  Pretty and tidy with their blue eyes and blonde hair, or soulful brown eyes and lovely dark locks.  She is red hair and startling eyes and skinny ribs.  She is a baby bird, all awkward ruffled feathers and nowhere near ready to fly.  A duckling in the wrong nest.

 

But here, in the room with the piano playing, she can follow the _one, two, three, four_ of the music.  She can feel its beat pressing up through her body, leading her limbs, forcing her heart to beat in time.  Her feet will move, and, for a moment – even wingless – with outstretched arms she can take to the sky.

 

*

 

The girls are not permitted weapons, except in training.  By the age of ten (perhaps nine, perhaps eleven, there isn’t anyone to be sure), Natalia can dismantle and then rebuild a Makarov PB pistol quicker than any other girl in her class.  Her fingers are slight, nimble, and she doesn’t make mistakes.  Against targets, she hits them almost every time, only missing by a hair the morning she has one eye purple and bruised and swollen shut. 

 

“Good,” her _uchitelnitsa_ says with an almost invisible upturn of her lips.  “Now hit Inushka.”

 

Inushka is younger than Natalia; she has been in the Red Room less than a year.  She is beautiful but slow, her _pas de bourée_ elegant but her languages abysmal.  She cries every night with her face in her pillow and weeps for her mother to come and take her away.  How strange, Natalia thinks, to wish for a mother.  To remember a mother, her face, her touch.  To think there is another place for them in the world outside these walls. 

 

Natalia watches her.  The other girl is across the yard, pink tongue peeking out from between her lips as she struggles with her own weapon.  She is too small, truly, to hold the gun properly, to balance against the kickback when the weapon fires.  She flinches with a twist of her head at the sound of the explosion. 

 

Natalia never flinches.

 

There is a quiet popping sound, and then Inushka falls first to her knees and then forwards, her face frozen in a wide-eyed look of surprise.  Crimson spreads across her brow, dripping onto open lashes and into ice-blue eyes.

 

Bitterness coats Natalia’s tongue and sour bile crawls up her throat.  Her fingers do not loosen on the gun.

 

A hand lands on her shoulder.  “Well done Natalia,” her _uchitelnitsa_ smiles, almost sweetly.  “We shall make a _Chyornaya Vdova_ of you yet.”

 

*

 

They sit at desks in structured rows, all eyes focused forwards, mouths moving in flawless tandem with the figures on the screen.  This is a bi-weekly ritual, sometimes more often dependant on the weather, and she knows some of the other girls prefer it to their other lessons.  They think movies mean they can relax and become unfocused, but not Natalia.  She watches with unbroken concentration, listens obsessively closely to make her accept as perfect and polished and undetectably American as she can.

 

A story of Capitalist chaos, her _uchitelnitsa_ tells the group.  A young girl who fixates on material objects, on wealth and her desire to be part of the elite classes, and who doesn’t listen to her father, and eventually ends up losing her voice to the Sea Witch and being left behind when the prince goes off to marry another.  Natalia feels almost shamed that the foolish, eponymous Ariel should share her hair colour.  She will never be fooled by a man.  Men are weak and foolish themselves, and it is her job to use that weakness, not to be subject to it. 

 

They fast forward through the songs.  Her _uchitelnitsa_ calls them frivolous.  Some of the other girls look disappointed, but Natalia doesn’t waste time mourning something she has never seen and will never see.  Instead she mutters lines to herself until she doesn’t have to think about rounding her vowels and casting a lilt to the ends of her words. 

 

After the movie, the cane smacks down on each girl’s desk, and she practices a phrase from the workbook.  Some stumble on pronunciation, or feel the cane hard against the backs of their hands for too much of a guttural sound.  Her _uchitelnitsa_ praises Natalia’s progress.  She is made to stand at her desk, reciting phrases for the others to copy.

 

_Wow, you guys._

_It’s so nice to meet you._

_You look like a million bucks._

_Don’t worry, it’s a piece of cake._

 

They recite them again and again until the words blur, and Natalia is pretty sure they have lost all meaning.  But standing in front of the class, _that_ has meaning.  Jealous eyes upon her back have meaning, and the way the _uchitelnitsa_ almost imperceptibly nods her head holds the most meaning of all.

 

*

The Red Room is the domain of women.  Between her teachers and her classmates, Natalia has grown up with the scents of uniformly female skin and ubiquitous braided hair.  So when she is plucked from her ballet class and brought to a small room she has never been in, and is faced with two looming, broad and muscular men, she almost recoils.  In her leotard, she is noticeably budding, like a flower with petals beginning to unfurl, and though she wishes she were wearing her uniform instead, she does not flinch as the men’s eyes rake up and down her body.

 

“You believe she is ready?” the taller man asks, and even to Natalia’s unfamiliar ears, he does not sound trusting, or convinced.  She should feel cowed, she thinks, or embarrassed, but she does not remove her staring gaze from his face.

 

“Top in the current class,” her _uchitelnitsa_ replies.  “And not pretty enough that she will be thought of as anything more than ordinary.”

 

Natalia wonders if she should be offended by those words.  She wants to scrunch her nose, and a darkness must flash across her eyes, because the other man – the smaller man, who smells of expensive cologne that is a cloying cloud of musk to her – laughs.  Reaching out, he takes hold of Natalia’s chin, moving her face from side to side as though to study her.  In his other hand, spicy-smelling amber liquid sloshes against the edges of a cut-glass tumbler.

 

“She’s not so bad,” he says with a smile and a conspiring wink her way, as though they are allies.  She feels her fingers curl, wanting to clench into fists at her sides, but she forces them to hang straight and loose.  “A little plain, perhaps.  But she’s intelligent? Fast?”

 

Her _uchitelnitsa_ nods.  “Natalia has passed every test you have asked us to set.”  Her hand lands on Natalia’s shoulder and squeezes, and Natalia doesn’t know whether this is meant as a comfort or a warning.  She stands as still as possible, tries to school her face into an aura of capability.  “She is ready for what you ask of her.”

 

The two men share a murmured conversation, a few more disparaging comments about her looks, but finally nod.  A briefcase lies on the desk before them and the taller man rotates the spinning number dials until the appropriate combination causes the latches to pop open with a _snikt._ Natalia can see piles of brown envelopes nestling inside, and the man carefully selects one from the top half of the pile.  He slides it across the desk towards her with a meaningful look.

 

Natalia doesn’t move at first.  Only a prompting squeeze from her _uchitelnitsa_ has her reaching across to take the envelope.  “Thank you,” she says, because it seems the thing to say, but she wishes she hadn’t when it makes the smaller man with his air of whiskey and cologne throw his head back and laugh.

“Thank you,” he echoes, as though it is the funniest thing he has heard in many weeks.  Coming around the desk again he bends down so he can look her square in the face.  His breath tickles her cheek.  “You are something little Natalia.  Did anyone ever tell you that?”

 

She feels her face harden.  “I am one of 28.  I am a _Chyornaya Vdova,”_ she says with complete seriousness, and so it feels like a punch to the stomach when the man pulls away and begins to laugh again.

“Not yet,” he tells her, brushing her cheek with his fingers.  They are well manicured and smooth against her skin but she has to push down the shudder that threatens her body.  “But we have high hopes for you.”


	2. Chapter 2

The mission is a simple one.  So simple, in fact, she doesn’t know whether to feel offended or glad.  She is given a dress – the first clothes she has ever worn besides her uniforms – and marvels at the way the blue cotton twirls around her knees as she moves.  It is lace and bows – a little girl’s dress, young for her though she is small enough to wear it – and her hair is unbound from its braids and left loose and curly, being held back from her face only by a thick black headband.  Her shoes are so shiny she can see her reflection in them, and she has to spend an hour flexing her toes back and forth before they stop creaking with every step. 

 

She has read the mission file over and over a hundred times.  At the outer doorway to the barracks, her _uchitelnitsa_ helps her into the heavy woollen coat – navy blue with bright brass buttons – and stares at her meaningfully.  “Do not fail,” she orders simply, and Natalia can only nod.

 

A car waits outside and she is led into the back seat.  It smells of stale cigarettes, and the radio plays old Russian folk music with an unyielding crackle.  The window in the front is cracked open, so as her driver smokes, the plumes of sooty black smoke eek out the gap.  For Natalia, it means pulling her coat tighter around her to avoid the chill. 

 

They start on small roads and dirt paths, still sprinkled with melting snow.  Cows low in the distance and every few miles the unending brown landscape is broken by a lonely stone farmhouse, crumbling outbuildings, and strand of wind-stiffened laundry, flapping listlessly in the yard. 

She falls asleep as the trees begin to appear, first one or two, and then whole swathes of forest that sway and bend in the wind.  She doesn’t mean to sleep – she thinks she should be alert, taking in everything around her, all the things she has never seen – but the droning hum of the radio and the constant repetitive motion of the car lull her before she can fight against it.  Her head drops against the window and her curls brush her cheek, and her light puffs of breath make a patch of steam blossom and fade against the cool windowpane. 

 

Natalia awakens with a start, whole body tense and alert as the car comes to a stop.  The driver turns his head and looks at her over the back of his seat.  “Out,” he tells her with a gruff flick of his finger, his other hand tapping his cigarette so ash drifts against his shirted chest.  “You have work to do.”

 

She looks out of the window.  They are on the edge of a town – a large town – and Natalia has never seen so many people in one place.  “How do I get back?” she asks, because though she has memorised the mission, memorised the map of the town and all the street names, there has been no mention of how to get back to barracks, and she has been in the car at least three hours; she could walk back but not in these pristine shiny shoes and lacy knee socks without losing some extremities to the cold.

 

The driver snorts.  “Someone will find you.” 

 

It’s not exactly comforting, but he says nothing more, and so Natalia slides out from the back passenger seat and hears as her feet crunch against the ground.  She has barely taken five steps from the car when it drives away, leaving her in a puff of exhaust fumes.  She watches it disappear into the street, becoming one vehicle of many, before taking a deep breath and beginning to walk along the cobbles.

 

She has never been alone; at least not when she remembers.  Part of her wants to stop at every shop window and stare at their wares, linger outside the bakeries to simply inhale the scent of the dough.  As the crowds get busier, she watches the way mothers hold the hands of their children who laugh and whine and fuss and tug and chatter, and how they call to one another across the wide street.  It is a cacophony of noise. 

 

Natalia is not foolish enough to believe she is not being watched, so she does not let her feet wander from their appointed path.  Though she has never walked these streets, she sees them in her mind, the interconnecting woven channels of cars and vans and people, and as she turns a corner she sees the building she has been aiming for.  _Zakon o Politsii_ is written in bright printed letters, and as she sees it, her eyes fill with tears.  They begin to stream down her cheeks, pattering off the end of her nose, and her breath comes in short bursts, her shoulders shaking as she fights against the sobs.

 

Her feet climb the steps slowly, and she hears as her shiny shoes scuff against the concrete.  Her coat brushes against her bare knees, and as she pushes the heavy doors open she can see that her fingers are starkly white with the cold. 

 

Inside is a large entry way, full of people, and for a moment it’s frightening.  For once, she doesn’t push that fear down, but lets it overtake her, making her tremble and tense.  She hiccups a sob, and it’s that sound that makes a uniformed man look over at her.  He looks around – as though to try and find the adult that belongs with the young, crying child – and then, finding none, takes a step towards her. 

 

He kneels down, carefully, slowly, and she can tell he is trying to appear gentle, friendly.  He is heavy set and bearded, but his eyes are genuine and warm.  “Are you alright?” he asks her, his voice soft and low, and not at all surprised when she shakes her head, curls bouncing around her shoulders.  “What’s your name?” he asks, and when she bites her bottom lip, unsure, shy, and looks up at him from beneath lowered lashes, he smiles warmly.  “It’s okay, I’m a policeman.  I can help you.”

 

She licks her lips once, twice, and reaches up to scrub at her cheek with the back of her hand.  “Roza,” she tells him, her voice still a tremble, her tongue blunt against her teeth. 

 

“Roza,” he echoes.  “A pretty name for a pretty girl.”

 

Natalia allows a small smile at this; curved lip, wrinkled nose, sniffing against her slowing tears. 

 

The policeman smiles back, as though glad he has brought a little light to the little girl.  “Why are you crying Roza?  Where is your mother?”

 

Her bottom lip wobbles.  “I don’t know.  We were shopping in the town.  My gloves dropped out of my pocket and I went to look for them.  Then I couldn’t find Mama, or Papa.  I looked in the bakery, in the grocers – Mama needed more carrots for her soup but I couldn’t…” she trails off, letting her head hang, curls hiding her face from view. 

 

Standing up, the policeman holds out his hand.  “You were a very clever girl, coming here,” he promises her.  “Now why don’t you come sit in my office, we will get you something warm to drink and I can help find your Mama and Papa, okay?”

 

Reaching out, she lays her hand inside his.  It is warm and large and he gently wraps his fingers around hers.  Lifting up her face, she smiles again, and he uses the pad of his thumb to brush away her lingering tears before bopping her gently on the end of her nose.  Natalia allows a small, chiming laugh to escape from between her lips and the policeman smiles.  “That’s better.  Now, I bet you like hot chocolate.”

 

His office is a small box of a room with a window that needs a good clean and files stacked in piles next to a stained coffee cup.  He lets her sit in his chair – a large cracked leather seat – and smiles as she makes it spin around in a circle.  On his desk a picture of his family sit, two boys just older than her holding a fluffy black puppy, and a doting wife with short dark hair cut like a boy and glittering jewels in her ears.  “My family,” he says with a smile as he catches her looking, and she pulls her hand away as though guiltily.  “It’s alright,” he assures, putting her cup of hot chocolate down on the desk before her.  “Now you stay here and warm up while I go and make some calls to the shop keepers, okay?”

 

Natalia – _Roza –_ nods her head and wraps her hands around the little cardboard cup.  Taking a sip, the taste is sweeter than anything she’s had before, and it almost startles her.  It slides through her mouth like silk, and she can’t stop the honest, wide smile it brings to her face.  Hers, not Roza’s.  It’s a weakness, here in the cramped confines of his office, and as he pulls the door shut behind him, leaving her alone, she wrests it from her face. 

 

In a flash she is knelt on the chair, her fingers on the computer keyboard.  She pulls a flash drive from her heavy coat pocket and sticks it into one of the ports, searching through files upon files before finding the one she has been sent to receive.  As she double clicks to open, she finds a list of names and addresses, and downloads it quickly to the stick.  Then, closing the files, she just has her fingers resting on the keyboard when the policeman walks back in.  She allows guilt to wash over her face.  “I was looking for a game,” she tells him simply.  “My Papa lets me play them on his laptop.”

 

The policeman doesn’t look angry for even a moment.  Letting a little puff of laughter escape his lips, he comes round to her side of the desk.  “Kids,” he smiles with a tug of his beard.  “All the same.”  Then clicking on a simple icon, he brings up a game with a simple pixelated frog that can jump from log to log.  “My boys love this one,” he tells her, and rests his hand on the top of her head for a second, gently ruffling her curls.  “The men on the street are looking for your parents, okay?  I’m sure they’ll be here very soon.”

 

Natalia pretends to play the frog game for almost an hour while looking at the paper files on the policeman’s desk.  She learns his name is Lev Romanski, he is 36 and his sons are named Maksim and Pacha.  There is other information, but he is not a part of her mission, not in her dossier, and so she doesn’t dig further.  Instead she drinks the rest of her chocolate, and lets him sneak her a pastry from the box in the policemen’s break room.  It is filled with raspberry jam and she sits on his desk as she eats it, sugar coating her lips.  Some of it leaks out and drips on her chin and she is just laughing delightedly (partly _Roza,_ partly herself, drunk on its sweetness), when a man bursts through the door.

 

“Roza!”

 

She has never seen him before, but she opens her eyes wide and drops the bite of pastry still between her fingers.  There is only one person this man is supposed to be.  “Papa!”  She is off the desk, her arms wrapped around his legs before the policeman has even had the time to stand. 

 

“I was so worried,” the man says, kneeling before her, seemingly not concerned about the knees of his smart trousers or the sugar she is getting on his coat.  “I went back and I found your gloves on the street, but you had disappeared and oh, my darling girl.”  He wraps his arms around her, pressing her against him, and Natalia lets herself be held tight.  The man whispers into her ear, “Do you have it?” and when she pulls away she smiles at him, a positive confirmation. 

 

They leave the police station hand in hand, with Roza waving goodbye to the policeman, thanking him again and again.  He will go home and tell his wife about the little girl lost whose family he helped to find, and sleep the deep sleep earned from a successful day’s work.

 

Natalia is bundled in the back of a truck, the flash drive snatched from her still un-gloved hands the moment they are away from sight.  The twilight twinkles above her head as they drive back over uneven roads, with swaying trees and cooing pigeons the only things breaking the quiet.  This time, there is no radio, just the man in the passenger seat tapping away on a laptop and the driver – a different man this time – cursing every time they hit a bump. 

 

Screwing her eyes closed, Natalia leans her head against the window, and lets herself succumb to sleep. 

 

*

 

She is not congratulated for her completed mission.  Not the first time, nor second, nor third, forth, fifth.  Not for any that take place as she is sent out over and over, each brown file its own trip away from the barracks.  The completion is an _expectation,_ and Natalia wonders, when she crawls beneath her rough woollen blanket and her _uchitelnitsa_ takes her hand and guides it through the cool metal security of her manacle, what would happen to her if somehow her mission was not a success.  Then, shifting in her bed, cheek pressed into her lumpy pillow, she catches sight of the last bed in the row that had once cradled Uliya’s broken body.  Another girl sleeps there now, probably completely unaware of the child that had slept there before.  Natalia remembers Uliya’s purpled skin, her broken cries, and screws her eyes shut.

 

_She will not fail._

 

*

 

Through her missions and over many months, Natalia becomes more used to the larger world outside of the Red Room.  She picks up new phrases from conversations she overhears in the street, and advertisements she sees on the televisions perched in the windows of shops, and stores them away in her mind.  She studies billboards, magazines and posters, looking at women, at the way they stand, their smiles, the way they touch their hair.  Back in the barracks, in front of the old cracked mirrors, she practices the expressions, the looks, the tilt of her head.  In the small secret room where she stashes her bread treasures, she cocks her hip and fakes a laugh, and lets her fingers settle at the hollow of her throat. 

 

In the world, she is caught between being seen as a child and something entirely unchildish.  In cities and towns, she feels eyes linger on her; it makes her back prickly and hot. 

 

She is sat in a small café when she feels a gaze fall upon her, and her shoulders tense.  Checking behind her in the reflection of a teaspoon, tilted against the table top, she rolls her eyes as she realises there is no danger there.  Just a man with slicked back hair and rough corduroy trousers, shifting unnecessarily on his stool, staring at her over the top of his battered paperback. 

 

Natalia swallows in disgust.  She is in the clothes of a child – a simple pinafore dress, ruffled blouse, bow at her neck – her body bound and constricted so she looks young in them.  The fact that this man should have a flush up his neck as he crosses his legs, tugging at the collar of his shirt…she thinks idly for a moment of all the things in the café she could use to kill him (not counting the knives – that’s far too simple).  Despite her daydreams, she stays sitting calmly in her seat. 

 

The café has a quiet hum of patrons.  Enough that she does not stand out, but not so many that she may not linger over her orange juice.  Orange, which indicates success, files stolen or planted, intelligence gathered or dropped, depending on her remit.  It is a sign she is ready for extraction.

 

“You doing okay there?”

 

The waitress is probably in her 20s, dark hair pulled into a serviceable ponytail, and her nails painted a vivid red.  She holds her notebook of orders in one hand, a pencil in the other, and her eyebrows are drawn on in a perfect arch.  Natalia looks at her, and back down at the juice in front of her.  The glass is half full, and there are empty seats in the café, so she figures the young woman is being more conversant than complaining.

 

Fiddling with one of her braids, Natalia shrugs one shoulder, looking aloof and bored.  “I’m waiting for my uncle,” she tells the waitress.  “He said his meeting will be five minutes and to wait for him here.”

 

“Where’s his meeting?” the waitress asks casually, looking over her shoulder to check her boss is not watching her as she chats, leaning one hip against the table.  She chews on the end of her pen.

 

Pointing towards the window, Natalia indicates the building across the street.  “The bank,” she lies, and the lie is enough to make the other woman laugh and swear under her breath.

 

“I’ll get you something to read,” she tells Natalia with a wide grin.  “If he’s trying to get his money he won’t be coming back any time soon.” 

 

She leaves the table, and Natalia wonders over her words as she sits, swirling her straw in her drink.  She lets her feet pitter-patter, tapping out a rhythm beneath her on the smooth mopped floor, and listens as the bell chimes over the door, letting in a pair of mothers with pushchairs into the warmth of the café.  The waitress moves from the counter at the front to take their order, but drops a glossy magazine onto Natalia’s table as she walks past with a wink.

 

Natalia’s fingers run across the front page.  It is a picture of two women, beautiful, made up, hair poker straight and long enough to skim their bony elbows.  They stand in bright, berry-toned sleeveless sweaters against the backdrop of a city.  Natalia knows the word _vogue_ from her French lessons: _fashion, style, trend._ Curiously, she turns the pages and is assaulted by a riot of women, clothes, shoes, bags, make up.  One page has a section to trial perfume; she rubs her wrist across the paper sceptically, but is astonished when she sniffs her skin and the floral scent almost overwhelms her.  She feasts on the images with an unforeseen greed, soaking up the colours. 

 

Natalia is amazed to read an interview with a young man (attractive, quaffed, with even an _earring_ in his ear _)_ who apparently is a famous musician, though she has never seen his face.  She thinks he is too pretty for her tastes – hair too perfect, smile too easy – but she can only imagine what kind of music he makes.  Not classical, not something she can dance ballet to, but more like the music she has overheard in shops and coming from cars that bustle down the busy streets. 

 

There are reviews of films she has never seen, books she has never read.  The movies seem to centre on space and war, and cartoons about ants and bugs, and she’s so curious she ingests the words even though the context means nothing to her.

 

Then, coming to one particular page, she stops.  There is a woman in the picture with hair the colour of fire and eyes a hazel green.  Her body is wrapped in the most beautiful dress Natalia thinks she has ever seen.  It is black, one shouldered, seductive but simple, giving just enough to be tantalising: a suggestion, not a _fait accompli._ She can only imagine being that woman – grown, beautiful and alluring. 

 

Looking around her to make sure she is not being watched, she carefully, carefully tears the page out of the magazine, using her thumb to keep it right along the spine.  Then folding it up, she has just tucked it down her waistband when the bell above the door chimes again, and she recognises the smoky countenance of her driver.  His eyes go straight to her drink, and seeing it is orange, he cocks his head her direction.

 

“Olga,” he calls, his voice gravel over the chattering afternoon conversations.  “I am ready.  Let’s go.” 

 

Standing up, Natalia nods a thank you to the waitress, who waves a hand in reply.

 

The driver takes Natalia’s shoulder as they leave, squeezing it tightly, steering her with intent.  He says nothing to her on the drive back, but smokes his cigarettes one after another, enough to make her eyes water and her nose prick.  She slumps down, staring out of the window.

 

She is just beginning to doze when she is slapped hard on the thigh.  She jolts upright and looks at the driver with consternation as he returns his hand to the steering wheel.

 

“Don’t slouch,” is all he says as he lights another cigarette, taking a deep breath and then blowing it back in her face.  “Makes you look ugly.”

 

*

That night, Natalia sleeps with the piece of paper folded into the smallest square she can make, and tucked inside her pillowcase.  The next day, she slips into her secret room, climbs up the bookcase ladder, and after taking a long look at the beautiful redheaded woman, buries the picture beneath her stolen rolls.

 

* 


	3. Chapter 3

The first time it happens she thinks she is probably dying.  She is in the shower block, surrounded by the other girls, hair plastered to her head by the cold water, when she notices a trickle of blood on the inside of her thigh.  Confused – because she doesn’t think she has any injuries she’s not aware of – she twists her body around, reaching down to feel for any cut or wound she has somehow missed.  When she pulls her hand away and her fingers are bloody, her mind goes momentarily blank. 

 

Her shock only lasts a second.  Then she is leaning into the chilly spray, washing the evidence away, and quickly moving to get in line behind one of the other girls to be checked over by their _uchitelnitsa_ and handed a towel.  She wraps hers snug around her body, clamping her legs together as tight as she can. 

 

 _Something is wrong_ runs through her head, over and over again, as she troops back with the other girls, clad only in a thin white towel.  Coming to line up by her bed, she catches Dina looking at her strangely, and when they kneel down to pick up their nightdresses, she reaches over and grasps at the older girl’s wrist.

“I’m bleeding,” rushes out of her mouth before she has time to think.  “I don’t know what to do.”

 

Dina looks confused for a second, and then understanding dawns in her eyes.  Checking they are not being observed as they pull on their underwear and nightdresses, Dina reaches beneath her mattress and pulls out a scrap of material that looks to Natalia as though it has been torn from an old pillowcase. 

 

“Fold this up and use it,” Dina instructs her in a barely audible whisper, shoving it into Natalia’s hands so fast she almost drops it.  “In your underwear.  To stop the blood.”

 

Facing towards her bed – all the privacy the room offers her – Natalia does as she’s told.  It feels strange; she can’t help but think of a child who’s wet herself, and the material feels bulky and obvious.  Still, she leaves it there, and crawls onto her bed, sliding beneath the grey blanket, clutching it tightly around her waist with one hand, the other held, routinely prepared, above her head.

 

She is silent as the _uchitelnitsa_ does her rounds, listening for each distinctive click of metal, and then the sliding bolts of the heavy door before she lets herself breathe again.  Then, shifting onto her side, she faces Dina, who – almost hidden in the darkness – holds a finger to her lips.  They both are silent, frozen, listening as the other girls shift and wriggle, yawn and sigh, and eventually slip into the deep, even breathing of sleep.

 

Natalia’s voice, when she finally speaks, is barely a whisper.  “I’m not dying?”

 

“No,” Dina shakes her head.  “It’s just…something that happens.  When you get older.  Okay?” 

Dina sounds sure, her dark brows furrowed, so Natalia nods her head in acknowledgement, if not understanding.  “Will it stop?”

 

“In a few days,” Dina assures.  “Just wear your gym shorts under your uniform and rinse the fabric out when you need to.  And _don’t_ tell the _uchitelnitsa.”_

 

The words sound like an order, and make Natalia freeze beneath her blanket.  There are no secrets in the Red Room – secrets always got found out.  Girls went without food, or blankets, or sleep.  Or worse.  Biting her bottom lip, she whispers, “Why?” and is almost surprised when Dina’s face crumples into something like sympathy.

 

“You’re gonna make it, you know that?  I’ve heard them talking – you’re going to fulfil the program, make a real _Chyornaya Vdova.”_

“So are you,” Natalia whispers back insistently, furious loyalty burning through her like a fever. 

 

She doesn’t understand the expression that washes over Dina’s face; some mix of guilt, and disappointment, tinged with resignation.  “No, I’m not,” she replies, calmly but firmly.  “I’m already too old.  They might find a use for me but…” she trails off, breaking away from Natalia’s eyes, and slowly swallowing.  Natalia watches her, heart thudding against her ribs like a desperate sparrow in a gilded cage.  There is a long beat of silence before Dina raises her gaze again, looking serious, and almost nervous.  “Listen to me Natalia: if they know you’re bleeding they will think you’re ready for a different kind of mission.  It’s one of the steps to graduating the program and it’s…it’s more than just fooling men for files, okay?  But they won’t send you until they think you’re grown.  So don’t tell the _uchitelnitsa._ Don’t tell anyone.  You keep it a secret better than any other secret you’ve kept.  And if they find out, even if it has been years, you tell them it is the first time.  You lie, you promise me _Myshka_.  Okay?”

 

Dina has never asked her to keep secrets.  Never asked her to lie. 

Natalia pulls her blanket up around her shoulder, and her chains clink softly in the quiet room.  “Okay,” she agrees.  “I promise.”  Exhaling softly, she lets her eyes close, and her lashes brush against her cheeks. 

She doesn’t know that Dina stays awake watching her long after she has fallen into sleep.

*

In a year, Natalia has grown five centimetres, and has to focus with increasing dedication during ballet.  Sometimes her feet seem uncooperative (one week of lessons she is struck with the cane so often that her back is striped and weeping blood and showering in icy water makes her hiss with pain as she tries to clean the wounds) and her body seems to find a new centre of gravity every morning.  Her hips round out and her jaw softens, and where her mouth was once judged as awkward and overlarge, her lips are now seen as tempting and lush.

 

Her driver, instead of blowing smoke in her face when they travel and grousing at her for resting her feet on the dashboard, now sweats profusely whenever she is in his car.  She doesn’t understand why, at first, until she catches him using the rear-view mirror to stare at the curve of her breast instead of the road.  Then she licks her lips and plays with her hair, and convinces him to let her smoke one of his cigarettes out of the car window.  Her _uchitelnitsa_ wouldn’t approve, she knows, and partly that’s the thrill as she inhales the bitter smoke.  It makes her cough, smoke burning her nose and her eyes, and the driver laughs his gravely hacking laugh, but she is determined.  Once her lungs have stopped spasming, she inhales again, and this time she manages to keep her body from rebelling. 

 

The _uchitelnitsa_ still doesn’t know her secret, though she watches with suspicious eyes as Natalia buttons up her blouses or changes before bed.  Natalia, in turn, has become better at hiding things herself.  When they are given free time to practice (their dance or their languages, their tumbling or aim), she finds moments to slip away into her private, secret room that now holds far more than simply stale bread.  She has cigarettes, stolen and hidden, and coins from her driver’s car.  She doesn’t know how much they’re worth.  She has an old towel, torn in to strips, almost perfectly unmarked: a bi-product of her training, she has learned how to remove blood from almost any fabric. 

 

She has other pages torn from magazines and papers; pictures and images of places and faces she has never seen.  She loves the photographs of the sandy beaches and jewel coloured sea – she’s never seen the ocean before – and stares at it as she sits in the cramped little crawl space, her knees pulled up to her chin.  Only once has she ever heard footsteps in the hall outside, a hand on the doorknob, but she always locks it behind her.  Even so, she had held her body as still as ice and marble and hadn’t dared to breathe until the footsteps had moved away.  For that moment, she had felt invincible. 

 

More of her missions take place at night now.  She meets men in dark bars with dark thoughts in their minds, but she knows how to give them just enough.  She is the coquette, the _ingénue,_ lips painted just the right shade of red that men focus on her mouth instead of her face.  After she slips out the door (their secrets hers now to keep), they could describe her as beautiful, but no detail more. 

 

There are infinitesimal signs of praise.  An extra piece of bread at meals, tucked away under her first, new socks before hers are all the way worn through, and a strike of the cane to the shoulder instead of the face when she misconjugates her Latin verbs.  There are murmurs of her graduating, and though she knows they consider her still too young, the men with the briefcase visit more often, watching her through the windows as she practices her dance. 

 

She may be one of twenty-eight, but she knows she is somehow more.

 

_Pride goeth before a fall._

 

*

 

He is the son of the Swiss ambassador, and he is nineteen.  His hair is streaked blond and his fingers are long and tapered; she is obsessed with his hands. 

 

As an intern in the embassy in Moscow, she lives for weeks as Larissa, working the photocopier and answering phones, and making coffee for the men who rush about from meeting to meeting and barely even notice her.  She dresses demurely, hair pulled back from her face and makeup minimal – she is not meant to be noticed here.

 

But _oh,_ he notices her.  At first it’s a smile, almost shy, and then a pause at her desk to ask for the time.  Next it is ‘conveniently’ being in the cafeteria at the same time, and sliding into a chair at the table next to hers.  He asks if she can pass the salt: their fingers touch and there is no going back.

 

There is an empty office, he murmurs to her in breathless French, that is used for only files.  It is filled with cabinets and smells of furniture polish, and the blinds stay half-drawn so their bodies are dappled with mid-afternoon sun.  His lips explore her skin, nervously fluttering, like a skittish bird, but it is enough to make her knees weak.  His hands cradle her hips, her face, trail over her arms and shyly trace the buttons of her sensible dress.  With her heels kicked off, she rests her head against his chest, and can feel his heartbeat thunder.

 

He doesn’t take her that day in the office; he is far too polite and reserved, and seems to find enough satisfaction in simply letting his lips and hands wander across her skin.  Her body burns with want, but she plays equally shy, smoothing her skirt down with her hands and chewing the shiny pink gloss from her lips. 

 

They meet always in secret, in dark unused corners of the building.  She knows she should be asking him pertinent questions about the Swiss bank his mother works in, and the contents of his father’s safety deposit box (recently acquired from men whom the Red Room do not consider allies), but the minute he smiles at her, whispering her borrowed name and tangling his hands in her hair, all thoughts of her mission disappear.  It’s all she can do to exist and feel and experience and let him take control of her.

 

“Come away with me,” he asks her one afternoon as they curl their bodies together in the back of his father’s car, the underground garage dimly lit and empty.  The radio plays a song that she doesn’t know, but tries to hum along with anyways until his words make her laugh.

 

“I _can’t,”_ she tells him, her finger drawing abstract patterns on his bare stomach.  “You know I must stay and work to raise money for school.”

 

He steals her lips again, kissing her fiercely, hauling her up against him.  “Larissa, I love you,” he tells her, and she knows he isn’t lying.  She doesn’t think he knows how. 

 

“I have to go back to the office,” she responds, searching in the foot-well for her blouse.  (How easily he had prised it from her body, how clouded she had been by the desperation pulsing through her burning skin).  She tugs it on over her shoulders, easing the buttons in carefully one by one, allowing herself a small smile as he attempts to grab her wrists to stop her.  She bats him away easily.  “Samuel, I must.”

 

They leave one another in the elevator, his lips a blistering heat against hers. 

 

“A bientôt,” he murmurs gently as she exists, and wiggles his fingers in a wave as the doors slide shut behind him.

 

*

 

That night, when she enters the small apartment that is leased in Larissa’s name, Natalia is surprised to find her _uchitelnitsa_ waiting.  It seems almost absurd to see her away from the barracks, not in the classroom or beating the rhythm on the wooden floor of the dance room.  Fleetingly, Natalia wonders who will be settling the girls to sleep.

 

She does not have time to ask.  The _uchitelnitsa_ grabs her by the arm, fingers grasping hard enough to bruise.  Natalia had heard rumours that the _uchitelnitsa_ were women who never quite graduated the program, who never quite made it as _Chyornaya Vdova,_ but as she stares into the woman’s glaring eyes, Natalia realises that – even though she was only _almost_ a black widow - she is just as deadly as the name suggests.  

 

It is perhaps shock that keeps her docile as the woman drags her through the apartment, and almost certainly habit that keeps her from retaliating when she is slapped across the face.  Her head twists so violently she is sure she hears her neck crack, but it barely registers as the woman turns her around and grabs her hands, holding them tightly behind her back, and pushing her down so her face is pressed hard against the mattress. 

 

At first Natalia doesn’t understand what is happening until her _uchitelnitsa_ lifts up her skirt.  Then her body floods with an icy chill as she suddenly realises.  The fingers touching her, probing her body, are enough to make a sob catch in her throat, and she finds words tumbling from her lips before she has even thought them.

 

“I’m sorry,” Natalia whispers as the older woman removes her hands, leaving Natalia free.  She doesn’t move, just bunches the sheets in her fists.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“Get up.” 

 

She swallows thickly, tears pricking at her eyelashes, but turns over, standing up from the bed.  Her underwear is still around her knees.  “I’m sorry,” she tries again, but even before the words have left her lips, she is being struck.  Her _uchitelnitsa’s_ fingers are damp from where they had touched her so intimately, discovered her secret, and it marks Natalia’s cheek with her failure.  There is first one blow, and then another and another, until blood begins to flow from Natalia’s nose and she feels her lip split under the barrage.  Still, she does not fight back.  She drops to her knees, kicks slamming her body, and still all she does is murmur apologies over and over. 

 

She has let her _uchitelnitsa_ down.  She has disappointed her.  Natalia has broken the rules.  She deserves this.

 

She doesn’t know how long the beating goes on for.  She doesn’t remember crying out, or tears falling.  The only thing she remembers is her _uchitelnitsa,_ the woman who has been the most present figure in her young life, shaking her head as she looks down on Natalia’s curled and prone body.

 

“You stupid, foolish girl.  You have risked everything.”

 

That night, Larissa is called home to Stalingrad at the sudden death of her mother.  She never sees Samuel again.

 

That night, Natalia’s broken body shivers on a bare cot, blanket gone, and her broken wrist unset.  She wonders if she will make it through the night, or whether she will be whisked away by hours passing and the blustering wind like Uliya, so many years before. 

 

*

 

 

There is no food for days.  Even if Natalia could drag her body from her bed, she doesn’t think she would have the energy to walk.   There is still no blanket.  Dina watches her every night from across the aisle, too far to reach, to help, to comfort, and crosses herself in the darkness. A child’s prayer she hopes will ward off death. 

 

Natalia feels her the way her ribs move under her skin, feels her breath struggle, and counts the loose teeth inside her jaw, and worries that a prayer will be never enough.


	4. Chapter 4

 

“Natalia.”

 

Gentle hands touch her face, brushing her hair back from her fevered and sweating brow.  She doesn’t remember being sick, but her limbs feel leaden and heavy and her throat dry and raw.  Her eyes, when she blinks them open, are overwhelmed by the sudden light, and she recoils with a dusty cry against her cracked and papery lips.  

 

A cup is lifted to her mouth, and she struggles to swallow the icy cool water.  It tastes strange, almost bitter, and her ribs protest so much that she fights to keep it from coming straight back up.

 

“Careful, just a little,” the voice speaks again, soothingly, motherly, and it is only then that Natalia manages to lift her gaze.  Her _uchitelnitsa_ sits in a chair next to her bed, wearing a worried, soft expression that Natalia has never seen.

 

She is instantly confused.  She wants to recoil, but the touch is calming, and her head feels fuzzy; she doesn’t understand what’s happening.  Looking down her body, she can see that her arm is plastered, and her ribs wrapped with gauze.  “What happened?” she manages to choke out.  She remembers being in her bed, waiting for the sun to rise, to prove she had lived to another morning.   

 

A frown crosses the face of her _uchitelnitsa,_ and it reads honest concern.  “We almost lost you,” she says, and Natalia is baffled by the way her eyes seem to film over, sad and concerned.  “You’ve been in medical for three days.  Your fever finally broke this morning.”

 

Natalia doesn’t understand.  “I was sick?”

 

 “Very,” the _uchitelnitsa_ agrees.  “We tried taking away your blankets to cool you down, but nothing was working.”

 

She remembers sleeping without blankets, curling her body into itself.  She remembers shivering, feeling the wind against her skin, her toes like ice and her fingers stiff and numb.  Had she been feverish? Delirious?  She tries to think back but the memory is foggy, unclear.  She’s sure she recalls her _uchitelnitsa’s_ hands, but they’d been so different.  Not kind, like this, not gentle and warm.  She almost flinches, but she doesn’t know why, nothing seems quite right.  Had she been dreaming?  Her body certainly feels like she’s been asleep a long time, sluggish and heavy and dull.

 

“What happened to my arm?” she asks, curious, trying to pull herself a little straighter, to take in more of the room.  An IV snakes into her unbound arm – antibiotics, perhaps, or painkillers – and as she notices, her hand begins to itch.  She forces the feeling away.   

 

There is silence in the room, and it takes Natalia a moment to realise why that is strange: she has asked a question and has gotten no response.  Focusing back on her _uchitelnitsa_ (and focusing is such a _task_ with fever-pained eyes and a throbbing head), she is surprised by the sympathy written across the other woman’s face. 

 

“You don’t remember?”

 

There is a flash of a memory, but it bursts like a soap bubble, just out of reach.  Natalia shakes her head.

 

 “You were on a mission,” the _uchitelnitsa_ begins.  “There was a boy and…I’m sorry Natalia…he took advantage of you.  You tried to fight him off but he was very strong.”

 

Bile churns in her stomach.  Squeezing her eyes shut, she remembers hands on her, lips on her body, the smell of his sweat in a dusty room.  She remembers the feel of someone grabbing her arms, pushing her down.  Movement between her thighs, and her neck snapping around as sharp blows rained down on her skin.   

 

Tears burn against her eyelids.  “I’m sorry,” she manages, shame like a crackling fire across her skin, burning her to ash.

 

A hand slips into hers.  Her _uchitelnitsa_ squeezes her fingers and wears a small sympathetic smile.  “It wasn’t your fault,” she assures.  “Natalia doesn’t break the rules.” 

 

*

 

A year later, Natalia breaks into the Swiss Ambassadors home in Geneva, and puts a bullet through the head of the three people sleeping there.  She spits on Samuel’s cooling corpse. 

 

In Russia, her _uchitelnitsa_ smiles.

 

*

 

Back in the Red Room, she does not return to her familiar cot in the row of twenty-eight, but instead is sequestered in a separate room near the medical bay.  It has one small window, right near the top of the wall, with bars that cross the glass, and a single metal bed frame pushed into the corner.   

 

“You’re still weak,” her _uchitelnitsa_ tells her.  “You could easily catch illness from the other girls.  Until you are well again, you sleep here.”

 

Her first night in the room, Natalia is afraid by the unfamiliar shadows.  In her still-fever-muddled mind, the light shifts, and darkness seems to creep towards her.  Without the sounds of the other girls’ breathing, the silence seems stifling and strange, and she wishes she were still chained to her bed with the others, instead of having her wrists free, but being locked behind the heavy door, alone.  She tugs the blanket over her head and squeezes her eyes closed and hums music to herself ‘til it rings in her ears. 

 

She eats meals in her room, and after a week is allowed on walks to build up her strength, accompanied by her _uchitelnitsa._ They stop to watch the other girls spar in the spring-warmed courtyard, but not for long enough that she can speak with any of them.  Dina is at the far end of the yard, and if she has a reaction to Natalia’s reappearance, then she is too far away for Natalia to tell.   

 

After a month the plaster is removed from her arm, and Natalia is appalled by the state of it.  Pale as sour milk and withered, she clenches her fist and watches as the pathetic muscle flexes underneath her skin. 

 

“Be thankful there is no scar,” the doctor tells her over the rims of his glasses, stern and dismissive. 

 

 She gets up from the leather chair with care and thanks him.  Now the plaster is off she is allowed to return to her ballet lessons, and she hurries to her room to change into her leotard and sweep her hair away from her face.  She can hear the piano music as she rushes down the hall, shoes hung over her elbow, and slides into the room as quietly as possible.  Her toe shoes slip on as though they have never been away from her feet and, though she can feel the lethargy still lingering at the edges of her conscious, she takes her place in the line-up, and allows her body to fall into the familiar, known-by-heart moves.

 

The melody invigorates her body.  She is one of twenty-eight.  A dancer.  If she works hard enough, the music can take her anywhere.

 

*

_I am one of twenty-eight young ballerinas with the Bolshoi.  The training is hard.  But the glory of Soviet culture, and the warmth of my parents, makes up for it…_

_*_

 

Her walks out graduate to runs, and then obstacle courses and wall climbing.  When she is outside, her mind seems to clear, and she enjoys the feel of the wind – even bitterly cold – against her cheeks.  Her muscles gain tone she had lost to sickness, and she feels well, even if her _uchitelnitsa_ tells her she still needs medical care.

 

“It is for your own good, Natalia,” she insists as she guides her to the medical room, her hand on Natalia’s elbow, and helps her sit in the cold black leather chair.   

 

“But I feel fine,” Natalia tries to argue, as the doctor with the half-moon glasses comes into the room.  “Doctor, I’m better.  My wrist is healed and my head is clear.”

 

He ignores her words.  A stethoscope hangs around his neck but he doesn’t move to use it.  Instead he steps towards her.  “Remove your shoes,” he tells her.  “And sit back.”

 

She’s confused, but she does as he asks her, toeing off her gym shoes and watching as her _uchitelnitsa_ picks them up, placing them on a chair at the side of the room.  Then she slides back as far as she can, settling her feet on the raised metal rest at the bottom, and her hands onto the padded arms of the chair. 

 

Her body recoils, ever so slightly, when the doctor approaches her with a syringe full of liquid.  “I don’t understand,” she says again, “I’m better.”

 

One again, he takes no notice, and she winces as the needle pierces her skin.  After the initial rush of adrenalin, she feels the medicine working its way through her body, like hot molten lava in her veins. 

 

At the end of the room, a television set is turned on.  Dancers flow across the screen, and Natalia finds herself staring at them, transfixed.  “Good,” the doctor says, half to her, and half to her _uchitelnitsa_ who still stands in the corner of the room.  “She seems to be responding well to the dosage.” 

 

Natalia watches as the two adults move to her sides, using straps she hadn’t noticed before to bind her wrists to the chair.  She wants to fight, to struggle, but her body is somehow weak and limp and not responding to her commands.  “Now Natalia, I want you to focus on the dancers, and listen to my voice.  What is your name?”

 

She falters for a moment, and her words get muddled between her teeth and tongue.  “Natalia.”

 

“And what do you do here, Natalia?”

 

“I…I learn.”

 

“What do you learn?”  His voice is curious, conversational, as though discussing literature over tea.  When she doesn’t answer straight away, he asks again.  “What do you learn here Natalia?”

 

She tries to move her head, to look away from the ballet for a moment so she can take a moment to think, but then there are hands on her face stopping her, and her eyes are forced to focus on the dancers as they _pas de bourée_ across the screen.  The music thuds in her ears, somehow out of sync with her heartbeat, and the bright light makes her feel sick.

 

She feels her leg muscles spasm, but she has no control over it.  “I learn to kill,” she finally answers, and she knows it isn’t the right answer when the doctor stands, a tsking sound emanating from between his teeth.   

 

“A higher dose I think,” he says lightly, picking up another vial from the tray next to the television.

 

The _uchitelnitsa_ speaks from her position behind Natalia.  “She’s only young doctor.  Could this not be too much for her?”

 

The man taps the end of the syringe, checking for air bubbles in the liquid.  “You want her to graduate soon, don’t you?”  There is silence, then, “As I thought,” and the needle plunges again into Natalia’s arm.

 

Natalia fades in and out for hours.  Music loops over and over in her head, and scenes of men and women dancing wind like a recurring dream, seeming to play across her vision whether she has her eyes open or not.  She knows people speak to her during this time, but it takes all her effort to focus on keeping her lungs pulling air in and pushing it out. 

_Développé leap, **ciseaux, ciseaux** , pas de chat, **relevé** , bourrée, triple pirouette, chassé, pas de Basque, first arabesque…_

 

“What do you learn here Natalia?”

 

 She looks up, her eyes wide and her mouth slack. 

 

( _I am one of twenty-eight young ballerinas with the Bolshoi.)_

 

 “I learn to dance.”

 *


	5. Chapter 5

In the months that pass, mentions of her graduation become more frequent. They are whispers in the medical room and in the small office where she stands silently as missions are assigned to her. They talk about her, not to her, as though she is an object, or a test subject. She is aware she has become known for her successes, for the way she can slip into a man’s world, into his bed, into his inner sanctum of trust with only the barest smile. Her _uchitelnitsa_ tells her that her graduation will help her do her job more efficiently, will help to keep her safe when she is out in the world, away from their care. 

“What is the graduation?” she asks, earnest but hopeful, during one of her training sessions. Her lungs heave in mouthfuls of air as she braces herself with hands on her knees, muscles trembling with effort. The sun is barely up but she has already run the better part of 10 miles. Her _uchitelnitsa_ looks at her with her usually impassive expression, but does not answer, instead tapping her watch. 

“Another two miles I think before we move onto target practice,” she replies without answering. For a moment Natalia thinks about pressing, or arguing, but she can see the steely darkness behind her _uchitelnitsa’s_ eyes, so she closes her mouth instead and stands up straight, pointing her body towards the open fields and letting her legs carry her. Wind whips against her cheeks, burns her skin, drags her hair from her face. 

She is almost a _Chyornaya Vdova_. There are always other ways to find answers.

*

It has been many months since she has spoken to Dina. The older girl still sleeps in the room of 28 while Natalia is sequestered alone, and the two have been set to train on different sides of yards and rooms. Natalia has only wondered if their separation has been by design until she enters the weapons range – for her own personal practice, for time to clear her head – and find the dark haired girl disassembling her sniper rifle. 

“Dina,” Natalia’s use of her name is almost a whisper – it is against the considered protocol to speak to other girls on the range – and Dina’s head snaps up at the sound. Her hair is much longer now, not the juvenile bob she had worn for so many years of their childhood. Poker straight and barely lighter than midnight, it makes her blue eyes startling, and even though her face has grown angular and somewhat careworn in their years together, Natalia still thinks she is beautiful. 

“Myshka!” Dina addresses, almost as a reflex, and then frowns, putting her rifle down and holding her chin up, correcting herself, “ _Natalia_.” 

The tone is strangely distant, and it almost makes Natalia falter in her movements; only her training is enough to keep her face neutral. She runs her finger across the barrel of her Glock, recalculating. 

Dina licks her lips, working the pieces of her gun apart. “You look well,” she offers lightly as the younger girl comes alongside her. Her eyes rake over Natalia’s figure, her form, as she loads her pistol. “Madame Polina told me you were much recovered.”

Natalia raises an eyebrow in a perfect arc. “Polina?” she echoes, only lightly tinged with curiosity. 

A muscle in Dina’s jaw tenses almost imperceptibly, but when she looks at Natalia, her expression is set and strong. “Yes.”

“You may use first names now?” 

Natalia’s tone is light, a little teasing, but it is enough to make Dina turn to face her straight on. They both know something has changed. Natalia may be a prized asset, a golden girl on missions, but for her, the uchitelnitsa have always been only that: teacher. Not real women, not with real names. That connection has never been offered to her. But somehow, to Dina, the girl who will never make _Chyornaya Vdova_ , it has. 

There is a long pause. Dina’s hands – now empty of a weapon – brush against the coarse wool of her grey skirt, fingers drawing patterns in the worn material. When she lifts her head, she licks her lips again, “They have asked me to become an _uchitelnitsa_.”

She had suspected it, but hearing the words spoken aloud is still enough to make a dark cloud curdle in Natalia’s stomach. “I suppose I should congratulate you,” Natalia says, pushing a stray curl behind her shoulder. 

The many years of shared history, of stolen smiles and secret touches means that Dina is fooled not for a second by the tone Natalia uses. She reaches out, and her fingers ghost Natalia’s elbow. Her voice is a murmur when she uses it. “Myshka, you _should_. I can help these girls.”

“Dina…”

“No, Natalia, don’t you understand? How much better to have a cane in the hand of one who remembers their own whipping?”

Natalia forces a scoff down from her lips. It tastes like acid and bile and frustration. “How much better to have no cane at all?” 

There is a long beat of silence as they stare at one another, as though recalling the ghosts of the children they together had once been. The glock in Natalia’s hand feels unusually heavy, and somewhere in the back of her head she recalls holding it here, aiming at a girl too young to have left her mother’s apron strings; as though any of them could recall the protection of maternal skirts. She remembers blood blossoming against golden hair, but shakes the fragment of memory – if it is even a memory – away. “I suppose you have heard I am to graduate?”

It is apparent she hasn’t, and Natalia curses inwardly knowing that she will be no use for information. The news hits Dina’s face like a crashing tidal wave before she struggles to cover her emotions; there is a reason she will never graduate the program herself. “Myshka,” she whispers, as though to herself, and then shakes her head. “Natalia. I always said you would make a real _Chyornaya Vdova_ didn’t I?”

“Whatever that means.”

Dina’s hand rests heavy on Natalia’s shoulder. When they lock eyes again, Natalia is surprised to see honest hope in Dina’s eyes. “It means you will finally have a place in the world Natalia – we _both_ will. Isn’t that what we’ve wanted all these years?”

In truth, Natalia doesn’t remember ever wanting. Wanting is for other people: for the girls in shops and restaurants and those who laugh as they stroll along the streets with the friends and lovers she has never – and will never – have. She is simply _Coppélia_ , the dancing doll, fashioned and wielded by the hands of others. 

She looks at her old friend, now so far removed from the young girls they had once been.

“We _have_ no place in the world.”

* 

She goes back to the barracks, to her little room and the doctor with his black chair, to practicing her dance. She takes her medicine because she is still sick, sleeps alone because the other girls and their germs are dangerous, and has weekly visitations with the ubiquitous men and their briefcase.

With every file they hand her, she takes on another mission. Another plane trip, another country, another experience of the world. Another chance to succeed, to turn herself into a weapon. To follow the rules. She leaves Natalia Romanova in Russia, shed like a skin, like the sheets she lets fall from her body when she leaves dead men in their beds and walks out into the night. The women she becomes ( _Stacia, Tessa, Madeleine_ ) wrap around her like smoke.

*

At night, she dreams vividly. 

Her small, black room becomes chaotic and bright, as demons seem to creep from the shadows and her mind, growing and twisting and making her cry out in the dark. She sees faces she cannot fully remember in daylight; men who have fallen asleep next to her and never woken up, and young girls that she can never be sure were ever real or not. Red-headed mermaids dance with magazine models and the scent of cloying cologne clogs her throat. Smoke builds around her feet, and in her ears, the one, two, three of her _uchitelnitsa’s_ stick beats against the wooden floor of the classroom as she tries to make her body follow the movements. Toe shoes become chains, binding her in place on a looming leather throne, and the one, two, three of the stick becomes a slow, sickly count from her own lips, shaky and unsure. Ballerinas move across a flickering screen.

Her skin prickles under the wool blankets, her body exhausted but unable to sleep for any longer than the fitful dreams allow. Each night she finds herself back there, unable to say where she has been in the hours that proceed the night. Had she been dancing? Perhaps; her memories are full of _jetes_ and _pas de bourees_. But her skin smells like sulphur and her mouth’s flooded bitter, and it’s her forehead that’s bleeding not her toes. 

*

When she dances, her mind is clear: arch the back, point the toes.

(When she holds a weapon her mind is clear: straighten the back, point the gun.)

Arm moves across her body in a sweeping arch, sweat dripping onto the floor. Her satin-wrapped feet beat against dusty floorboards and the other girls’ eyes look upon her as she moves. 

(Arm moves across her body in a sweeping arch, blood dripping onto the floor. Her boot-clad feet beat against creaky floorboards as she exits, and the dead men’s sightless eyes stare upon her as she moves.)

*

She wakes up in a strange room, herself a stranger in it. She thinks she can hear the ocean, but her little dark room is as far from the ocean as a person can get, and she doesn’t remember leaving. But the sun is rising, and gulls are screaming, and when she looks down, it is not a rough woollen blanket that covers her legs. Petal-soft cotton whispers against her bare skin, and when she wiggles her toes, she finds them painted a gentle shimmering pink. One look at her fingers tells her they match, nails carefully rounded and smooth. 

Standing up, she holds the sheets against her body, for she is undressed and it all feels strange. Her hair swings against her back, long and loose and – when she catches sight of herself in the mirror – dyed a painfully unfamiliar brown. The books on the shelves are not hers either; she can’t imagine owning so many about horses, and all in Italian besides.

In the breeze from the half-ajar window, a fluttering catches her eye. It’s a man’s shirt, faint with expensive aftershave, subtle and fresh. She pulls it on over her shoulders, clutches it closed against her bare skin, and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to remember anything about how she came to be here, or what she’s supposed to do. All she can remember is the first brown envelope she was ever handed – her blue dress and the coat with the brass buttons, drinking sweet chocolate at the police station.

_Roza_ , she had been then. _Natalia_ , when she remembers falling asleep. Who was she now? What name, what face, what mask was she supposed to be wearing in this room, so far away from the last thing she recalls?

Her eyes are still squeezed shut when she hears someone moving in the room next to her. Without thinking, she opens a drawer next to the bed, and then her fingers are wrapped around the cool, smooth barrel of a gun. 

_Hands would be quieter_ , she thinks, from nowhere. _Poison less obvious_. 

Her body begins to shake. The movement next door becomes a voice, and running water, and a gentle tenor singing happily to the radio, seeming to make up the words. She knows she should remember him, should be able to say his name, recall his face, recite his list of crimes. She should know him. But all she has is the feel of his shirt and the sound of his voice and the lingering trace of his scent. 

She puts the gun back in the drawer, and drops to the edge of the bed, pressing her head into her hands. Pain is building and growing, burning at the edges of her eyes and lodging in her throat, making it hard to breathe. She bites her lip hard enough to taste copper on her tongue, and the bright metallic taste seems to calm her.

_Electrocution_ , a little voice speaks from somewhere inside her. _He has the radio plugged in right next to the bath. How easily it could slip_.

With a deep breath, she stands. She looks at herself square in the mirror, pushes her long, unfamiliar hair behind her shoulders. Cocks a hip, quirks a smile. Puts on a face she has seen in a torn page of a magazine a hundred times.

Stepping into the bathroom, she greets him with a wide, seductive smile, and with a flick of her wrist, pushes the radio into the water. Sparks fly. Limbs spasm and flail. His eyes roll back.

Natalia dresses out of the wardrobe, and packs the rest of the designer wear in a suitcase stored under the bed. Picking up the handbag next to the door, she finds a passport with her picture, and a ticket already paid. At the street side she hails a cab, and steps inside with an indifferent air.

Sat in the back, she studies her nail polish. Not a chip.

*

In Russia the winter wind is biting and frost and ice lay heavy on the ground. She has apparently put it off long enough; there will be no more delay, no more sidestepping, no more pretending she is too young. When she wakes up in the morning (her own bed, grey blanket, white nightdress, her own name on her lips) her uchitelnitsa already has a hand firmly on her shoulder.

Graduation Day. 

In years that follow, she will only remember the day in dreams or in nightmares. The target she is told to hit, the faltering in her stance. The man with arms around her neck and the way the power seems to drain from her body. She doesn’t know if it’s action or reaction that has her _uchitelnitsa_ smacking her hard across the face, calling her weak, telling her she will not fail. 

Her skin smells like sulphur again. Her lips are painted red as with blood. 

In medical she stares up at the ceiling, counting the marks on the tiles. _Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven_. Dim light glints off half-moon spectacles, down below her knees. _Thirty-eight_. Hands touch her skin and she feels her body tense and curl in on itself. _Thirty-nine_. A sharp pinch to the back of her thigh makes her cry out, and as her knees fall open, she feels a needle pierce her arm. The ceiling tilts and ebbs. _Forty. Forty-one. Forty…_

_Forty-one…forty-one…_

“You will be so much safer,” a voice whispers in her ear, though she can’t turn her head to look at who is speaking. Blinking is a painful effort. “The shackles of womanhood thrown off. No burdens tying you to a man, or a place, or a name. Trust me, Natalia. This is better.”

_Forty-two._

*

She heals slowly. Pain strikes like lightening through her body whenever she shifts, so she lies stock-still like when she was a child, still chained to her bed and in the room of 28. Now, she does not even have the unconscious breaths of the other girls to keep her company, to keep her grounded. She cannot keep time by their snuffles and snores, cannot judge the days waxing and waning by their movements. She lies alone, in the dark, and wakes in fits and starts to white hot pain and a blindingly black room.

There is no blood as she heals. No stitches, no scars or scabs or lingering bruises. Just a hollowed out kind of feeling and the taste of metal in her mouth. When the medicine ebbs enough that she can open her eyes, run her fingers across her body, she realises what they have done. She will never bleed again. All she may bring life to now are lies. 

*

Over the next year Natalia gets used to the feel of foreign soil beneath her feet. She clutches names and faces to her breast like a bunch of wilting flowers, each one dropping petals and dying in her grasp only hours after being plucked. Sometimes, if she is lucky, she simply wakes in her room with the scent of the ocean still perfuming her skin, but no recollection of the waves. If she is unlucky, she wakes as a stranger in a strange place, and is all too aware of the heady coppery blood that stains her arms and hands. 

Her body is a useful vessel. Men pump their seed into her, though it finds nothing but a hollow chasm and meaningless death. Those men, pliant and foolish with their release, usually find death soon after. She washes their blood from her hands in expensive, porcelain sinks, her unfamiliar reflection staring back. Sometimes, she takes time, stands in stolen showers long enough that the water runs cold and the last trail of pink disappears down the drain. Sometimes she holds back her exit until dangerous sounds (banging fists on doors, shouting voices, sirens) are the last sounds she hears before the shadows devour her. 

*

In Russia she runs laps of the courtyard until her breath stutters in her chest. Young girls, small and fragile as sparrows, line up by the wall, the pink marks of their manacles still fresh on just-woken wrists. Natalia rubs her own arm and feels the slight scar on the outside joint that is invisible except to touch. She needs no visible chain now. 

*

A mark’s bodyguard stabs her in the thigh the same month she breaks three ribs and fractures her clavicle fleeing a corrupt South African diamond baron. The _uchitelnitsa_ calls her reckless and backhands her across the face hard enough to make her lip bleed, and she spends a whole day (perhaps a day, perhaps two) in the doctor’s chair. The only reason she knows it isn’t longer is that her lip is still swollen when she returns to her room. 

She wonders if she simply lies in her bed, refuses to eat, refuses to move, refuses to wear any more of their masks, if it will make a difference. If she lets the weight of the invisible anchor drag her fully into the darkness, will the dancers that unceasingly spin in her mind every time she closes her eyes ever find their peace and be able to rest?

The next morning she sees Dina help one of the smallest girls – one of the never ending 28 – into a heavy navy wool coat with shiny brass buttons. New shoes creak and bend against the floor and the young girl’s eyes are wide and curious and full of misplaced bravery about being sent into the world outside. A man stands off to the side – briefcase in hand, a cloud of cologne – and watches the little girl, the little unfurling flower, take her first steps into the snow.

Natalia returns to her room and vomits on the floor until her stomach is cramping and the air is sour with acid and bile. Then lying on her bed, she stares at the black ceiling with its tiny filter of sunlight, and recites her name to the empty sky. 

_I am Natalia._

_I am Natalia._

_I am…_

*

In the weeks that follow, she dances until her limbs burn, and her feet are stained crimson and black with bruises and blood. She conjugates verbs in every language, facing herself in the mirror with an unflinching stare. In her crawlspace, she eats every roll she has ever saved, tearing them up and pressing each morsel of stale dough against her paper-dry lips. She takes the pictures from the bottom of the box and rips them into pieces so small they will never be stuck back together. Her childish rebellion, reduced to infinitesimal nothingness at her feet. Dust in a room no one ever enters, pointless shreds of meaningless dreams.

*

_A mouse in a trap will chew off its own leg to survive._


End file.
